


White Chalk

by theanaideialegacy (Kiraia)



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Death, Gen, Mention of Attempted sexual touching on a Child, Original Characters - Freeform, PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Timeline : 3675-3662 BBY (22-9 BTC), attempted suicide, but nothing happens, but really i don't speak about it, dark sided main character, inspired by the "The Long Goodbye" heroic on Rep Tatooine, it's just underligned, no companions, not compliant to the Jedi Knight Storyline, of sorts, un-diagnosed autism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10441452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraia/pseuds/theanaideialegacy
Summary: The sand is burning hot, but Kiraia is used to it.She's used to the winds full of dust, to the pale walls of coarse stone, to the round courtyards, half buried with sand, to the sun that burned her cheeks forever, to the Sand People's bellows, to the ratwomb's infected bites.She knows how to gather water from shadow, how to dress in with only rags, how to make shoes from Bantha's skin, how to steal from the Jawas.She knows how to survive the desert while owing nothing more than scars, white skin, bad luck, and a warm hand to hold at night.Kiraia now travels with a speeder, a lightsaber, the support of the Republic army and of the Jedi Council.But her hand hides a chill that not even the burning sand slipping out her fingers manages to drive away.And Kiraia asks herself if dying between the dunes wouldn't have been better.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is technically a translation I made, since I usually write in Italian, so I'm sorry if some things got lost in the translation or if it just doesn't make sense sometimes. Tell me what looks wrong and I'll try to fix it!
> 
> The story is not SWTOR compliant and takes place some years before the Treaty of Coruscant so it's still open war between Pub and Imp. Companions and game-NPC are not present being a OCs exclusive storyline.
> 
> Kiraia and Lyaki are my OCs, Vhan'Zham is a friend's.  
> You can find these characters info in the ending notes.
> 
> [EDITED LAST : January 2018 )

Tatooine is like the desert covering its surface, unchanging to the distracted eyes, but hiding constant movement, like dunes at the mercy of the winds.  
Kiraia wouldn't be able to say what changed during her absence. She just perceives a sense of loss, and she asks herself, in the silence of her mind, if she is, too, nothing but a stranger in this golden land.

The fact that this planet, after all her pain, all her suffering, doesn't seem to recognize her, doesn't seem to be willing to give her the slightest satisfaction, corrodes her like a burning sickness.

Kiraia directs her index and middle finger to her forehead and then lowers her hand brusquely to the ground.  
It's an old Tusken gesture, far from the realm of decency, that screams a curse to that ungrateful land.

°°°

She's used to the solo missions and the Council trust her enough to send back to her native planet without causing them troubles. She has a permit on her pad that allows her to do pretty much whatever she wants or, at least, to not be bothered by the local forces.   
As long as she can bring back proof of a job well done and a gentle smile to hide the more gruesome facts no one will notice if the sand is a bit more red in her trail.

°°°

Kiraia leans against a protruding rock, old orange sand made stone. The air is thick with heat and she feels it glide down her throat at her every breath. Her back is rigid and her eyes scan the horizon, vigilant, but she lets her muscles imperceptibly relax, lets her flushed skin absorb the meager humidity that the shadow offers.  
The Knight lets the whispering of the wind lull her and finds herself fighting the desire to kick off her boots and sink her feet in the sand.

The soil is burning hot, but Kiraia is used to it.  
She's used to the winds full of dust, to the pale walls of coarse stone, to the round courtyards, half buried with sand, to the sun that burned her cheeks forever, to the Sand People's bellows, to the ratwomb's infected bites.  
She knows how to gather water from shadow, how to dress in with only rags, how to make shoes from Bantha's skin, how to steal from the Jawas.  
She knows how to survive the desert while owing nothing more than scars, white skin, bad luck, and a warm hand to hold at night.

Kiraia now travels with a speeder, a lightsaber, the support of the Republic army and of the Jedi Council.  
But her hand hides a chill that not even the burning sand slipping out her fingers manages to drive away.  
And Kiraia asks herself if dying between the dunes wouldn't have been better.

°°°  
Kiraia and Lyaki were twins.  
Same white skin, green eyes, black hair and heavy eyelids.

Lyaki possessed a peculiar intelligence, rough and silent. He was good at adapting, memorizing, understanding. He knew where to hide when the villagers would start looking at them weirdly, where it was safe to spend to night, which wall to climb to reach unseen rooftops, which hinge to break to enter an abandoned house.   
And, while credits seemed a forbidden fruit, he would bite the bullet and observe quietly the Jawas selling and crafting their merch.

Kiraia had taunting eyes, hungry and unstoppable. She would lead flocks of children in the narrow alleys of the villages, breaking and consuming like a low of lava, unchallenged and violent. She had a talent at readjusting, at understanding what was expected from her and giving it with all her strength.   
She was proud and unsatisfied, running and never willing to look back.

They would often fight, as children, when their young age still allowed them so. Their minds busy enough with life to allow them differences without ripping them apart.   
They still knew all too well that, once the sun had set, the other kids gone back home, they only had each other to keep the cold of the night away, and that they didn't had the luxury to let hate grow in that arid land.

They spent good part of their childhood in refugees' camps, or in isolated families that could use a little help, but they were used to be on the move, to forget faces and to never stop and never regret.   
They stopped accepting strangers' help after an old veteran that was feeding them in exchange for help with his farm had tried to touch Kiraia underneath her clothes.  
She strangled him.  
She swore to Lyaki, tears in her eyes, screaming, that she hadn't even touched him.  
And yet purple and yellow and green bruises had blossomed on his lifeless throat, like poisonous kisses.   
She was eleven years old and not strong enough to have done it, so they looted everything they could carry from the house and fled the village hoping not to be followed.

°°°

They are thirteen years old. There are no more children running behind Kiraia and the villages talk of them as of dark spirit, not exactly human. Old rumors of them being rejected spawn of the Tusken Raiders follow them whenever they go. They are left alone, and maybe it's for the best.  
Lyaki slowly learns how to build blasters, copying the skilled gestures of the troops that are constantly crowding the villages.  
The strangers are not particularly invasive, usually, and the residents don't care if they are Republicans or Imperials. Voices, uniforms, mottos and modes don't influence Tatooine, where the winds loosely shape waves of dust and the suns rise and set too often.

°°°

Kiraia can kill flies in flight.  
She moves her hand effortlessly in the air, following invisible currents, and, suddenly she stills it and the insects fall to the ground, defenseless.  
Lyaki looks at her, distracted from his crude crafting, unable to understand what this should mean to them exactly.

She sometimes offers to do it on something bigger, something they could feed on.  
She's tempted, but scared. Too proud to say so but with the sound of a trachea crushing behind invisible hands keeping her awake at night.   
But there a sensation burning inside of her, that she need to get out.  
Lyaki still has that old man's eyes, full of ghostly terror and death, haunting his sleep and, worse, her sister's eyes, briefly shining with acre yellow.  
And it's just not worth it.  
Kiraia manages to keep herself busy.  
Scars, burns, flights, fights, hunger, thirst, heat, cold.  
They never stay put, like the dunes.

Kiraia has a sort of silent rush, inside. She feels it, like a fly, or like a defective blaster, frenetically buzzing into her ear, and, whatever she does, it doesn't go away.  
But the heat seems to placates it, exertion quiets it, movement loosens it.  
She realizes she needs less and less energy to do things. While her brother gets stronger and more muscular to keep up with her, each jump feels like a flight to her, each fight a dance.  
She is always first line, because no one never believes her capable of what she can do, and Lyaki always watches her back, always ready to act when he receives to signal.

Once they didn't have the signal.  
There was Kiraia believing that she could do everything on her own and Czerka's men and Lyaki being hit and blood and red and blood.  
Kiraia knows she sees the world differently than he does, but she sees the warmth slowly seep out of his brother, she feels the helplessness of being forced on her knees again, begging for someone to fix her mistakes. She tracks the medic's hands as they stitch scars and life back into Lyaki. The newborn marks cutting his brother's flank are like a weight, reminding her she made a mistake and that she was so stupidstupidstupid.  
Lyaki is the only thing she has and Kiraia toughens up, finds calm in herself, cold as steel and cutting as a knife.  
In the meanwhile Lyaki bows his shoulders, discreetly asking the nice village medic to teach him first aid, getting used to the idea that, while his sister may not always be here for him, he'll always be there for her. He loves her and he can love enough for two.

°°°

Jedi arrive to the village one night.  
The two siblings know who they are, more or less. They heard rumors, but rumors are not usually worth much on Mos Isla.  
They are curious, but suspicious.

In the end it's the Jedi that find them. That find Kiraia.  
And the Imperials find them.

Kiraia is dragged away by the Jedi, hurriedly fleeting the city. The building bursts into flames and Kiraia feels empty. She senses a burning, pure energy, suffocating her.   
Lyaki was left behind.

Shame, shame on them and shame on her.  
Kiraia lets herself fall, her knees against the cold sand and the weight of the stars on her back.  
She feels sick.

°°°

The Jedi believe that they are doing good. Kiraia couldn't care less.  
They speak of things she doesn't like, that maybe don't even exist.  
She screams, doesn't let them touch her. She screams her brother's name, she repeats their signal again and again.  
But he doesn't come.

After what seems like years and centuries, after long sleepless night and senseless dreams, scratches and curses, Kiraia wakes up without the strength to call for her brother. She doesn't feel her breath going in and out of her lungs, and the wool in the soft mattress in chocking something in her brain, like a virus. Her mind is quieter and yet louder than it ever was and she is sure she must be dead, because it must feel like that.  
They say she's healed.

People she doesn't know, Jedi she doesn't know, speak to her slowly, explaining how it's not usually done, since her late age, but that they would like to teach her, that the Force runs strong in her, and other things.  
It seems as if they expect her to say something, to accept, to swear to be good, to behave, to express gratitude, who knows.   
Kiraia thinks about how they took her without her permission, how they sentenced her brother without a second glance.  
She feels a blaze of hate igniting in her, and she's delighted by the flicker of light it awakens in the void.

She doesn't speak much. Monosyllables as best. She sometimes refuses to come to lesson, unable to handle the echo in her head.   
They forbid her to use the Force, seeing how late she is in her training, and Kiraia keeps herself floating in the void. Deprived of the heat that gave her that shiver of power.  
But she pays attention.  
She perceives others before seeing them, everyone's presence too strong and too invasive. She asks herself if the others feel her as well, and panics, not knowing where to hide.  
Where to hide the thoughts on her brother and the brief relief her resentment gives her.

Slowly she learns how to hide her feelings, burying them behind gracious words stolen from overheard conversations, behind gestures dedicated to a faith she doesn't have, behind smiles that don't reach her eyes. She takes back the strength she wielded to lead flocks of angry children in the desert and bends it into soft smiles.  
It works in the appearances, but barely, and she feels her teachers' worry when they feel her cotton numbness being crossed by bruising bolts of pain that alight her like flash of lightning. She wonders what they see when they look at her, she wonders if she is wrong for not wanting the peace, for feeling sick, for feeling like drowning everytime she imagines herself letting herself be immersed by the hypocrisy.   
Kiraia thinks back to Tatooine's no-one lands, to the light that only fury gives her back, to the strength she had needed to kill the one that years ago had tried to offend her.  
To Lyaki's warm arms, to the love she's not allowed to feel.  
And promises herself to never give into their blackmail.

Meditation is hard on her, placing her in front of the null she feels. But, slowly, she manages to harvest the shards of hate, loathing, loss, love that she hold inside herself, and she fills the emptiness, she locks everything down, protected from prying eyes.  
Her outer mask is perfect, and inside her, inside that nothingness, so similar to the Jedi's   
preaching, she hides her strength inside a dark shell.  
And there, finally, she is balanced.

°°°

The mission that, years later, brings her back to Tatooine revives many contradictions, many struggles, a lot of indignation.

But slowly Kiraia feels herself getting used to Tatooine again, and almost finds herself slowing down, loosing time, as if waiting for something or someone, a latecomer, no further than a couple of step behind her, that would reach her if only enough time was given.

For now Kiraia is waiting for backup, just outside of the Republic Outpost.  
She doesn't really like being surrounded by people, so she trains in the dunes, shifting between Soreru's poses, killing the potential Skyc that would dare come too close.

The Dune Sea is immense, and, despite all the years spent on Tatooine, not even Lyaki and her ever dared stepping foot in there, and its vastness is still a never-ending mystery for small feet and scared souls.

In her seeking of the Imperial Outpost she stumbled into a Gamorrean Camp, set just on the border of a Sarlacc Pit.  
Despite being a decently impressive group, the main complication lies in the strategical placement and locals have been asking her directly for help erasing the menace.

Kiraia had contacted the Council, and it had been decided to send forward some help to get rid of the problem once and for all.

She senses the exact moment backup arrives to the Outpost.  
The Force sweeps over her gently, and Kiraia feels as if hit with an imperceptible wave of fresh air. A buzz, indicating the automatic ignition or her earpiece, confirms the presence, and immediately a warm and familiar voice reaches her right ear.

“Knight Kiraia. It's a pleasure to work with you again.”

She lowers her saber, and turning towards the base she can already see the Consular reading himself to ride the borrowed mount and reach her in the dunes, his robes flowing into the warm winds.  
She sighs, sweeping off the sweat from her brow, and trying to convince herself that it could have been worse.

°°°

A mild sandstorm hits them in the middle of the road and they eventually give up their search to seek shelter in a cave at the side of the stone canyon.  
Night falls by the time it takes for the storm to quiet, and they decide to camp out.

The fire crackles happily and Kiraia finally finishes to dust off her mount, all its gears covered by a thin layer of sand.   
Vhan'Zham sits next to the hearth, busy stirring a soup on the brazier.  
The meals they share together are based solely on vegetables and cereals by his request, and Kiraia doesn't really mind. She think she lost her sense of taste somewhere along the time she had to chew old Bantha leather to make the day.

She stretches out, joints stiff because of all the time passed on her knees beside the speeder.  
The wind has dropped, but its still bothersome, especially close to the ground, where the sand rises more easily.  
The desire to sit down wins out at the end and Kiraia makes herself comfortable against Vhan'Zham, trying to take advantage of his size to cover herself from the gusts of sand.  
The Consular seems to read her mind and tilts slightly toward her, turning his shoulders to the wind and reducing the sand's reach.  
He smiles at her and starts a friendly conversation of which Kiraia will have no memory the following day.  
Sometimes she thinks of how easy it would be to kill him.  
She doesn't do it with any particular desire, no reason or impulse, but the idea rises in her, tempts her and doesn't leave her. Like an enigma or a code to which Kiraia knows the answers but to which she denies herself the rewards.  
Everything turns around how easy it would be. She feels as if it would answer all of her questions, as if it would the trigger the start of an explanation, finally unlock the door hiding all the answers she seeks, explaining the unnamed burning she feels.   
And the idea arouses in her instincts that she thought she had learned how to quiet.  
She knows she won't do it. Because it would brand her as evil or, at best, crazed. She knows it doesn't make sense, that it's not worth it. She doesn't even mind the Consular that much and nothing rational would ever push her to do it.  
But it would be so easy.

°°°

The missions succeeds without a blemish and the Gamorreans' strategic location turns against them easily enough once the Jedi gain the upper ground.

The sun is blazing. The horizon lost in liquid mirages, the outpost turned into flaming stakes, the dead bodies dreamlike presences, flying sandbats shrieking a funeral chant.   
The Sarlacc Pit looks like a recurring nightmare's shadow, a soul of hunger and putrescence.  
Wheezing and wet breathing emerge from the enormous mouth and Kiraia almost hears her name being whispered.

Her skin burns, and she thinks back about her scars.  
She thinks back about a village close to Mos Isla. To eyes exactly like hers.  
She thinks about the fire. The one that she feels slowly burning inside her, that she chokes, quiets, as much as she can. To the yearning of being able to desire, to feel something other than fake peace and apathy.  
She thinks about what she doesn't have, she thinks about what she wishes she had.  
She wants passion, she wants fury, she wants pain.  
She lets the force, her own, burst inside and outside her.  
She hears her name carried by the wind.  
And then she jumps.

°°°

Vhan'Zham drives the speeder, silent but all in all almost happy.  
Kiraia sits behind him, having being momentarily deemed unqualified to drive.  
They are covered by dried saliva, slightly green, they stink, but they are ok.

The official excuse is of a sunstroke. And Kiraia is quite sure the Council is going to buy it with no question asked. But she is just as sure that Vhan didn't believe that one second.

But the Consular is still wrong, and Kiraia knows that for that overlook he can only blame his paternalism.   
Vhan'Zham sees in her a child eager to play with fire to see if it really burns.  
He already gave her an earful about how reckless that was, while Kiraia, too busy safekeeping the sensation and the adrenaline in her memory centers, didn't listened.   
But now the Consular is happy. Happy that they are both alive, happy to have taught a lesson, to have had the excuse to do something crazy too, who knows.  
But Kiraia lets her thoughts run away in the winds that follow the speeder's trail, and rests her head against the Jedi's shoulder, and, for a moment, she allows herself a little bit of happiness too.

°°°

She eventually finds the Imperial Outpost and manages to lead a full attack on their base, stopping their conquest of the western Sea.  
On the road toward Anachore, Kiraia and the remaining of the troops stops to restock, next to Mos Isla, and the Jedi recognizes shades of a dreamlike past in some ruins semi-buried by the sands.

Kiraia looks her demons in the face.

Her memories are the hearth of her greatest power, great enough to be feared by the Jedi Council itself.  
Kiraia learned how to keep her force leashed, but she lets it sing soundless lullabies in her darkest nights, guiding her to the strength that only torment can give her.  
That night she burned with him.  
But she rose again.

°°°

Arrived at the spaceport the Knight allows herself one last goodbye.  
She silently kisses her land, her burial and ashes.  
She bids farewell to her memories of flames, and swears revenge.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Kiraia's info](http://theanaideialegacy.tumblr.com/post/156219724628/kiraia-f-jedi-knight-human-the-question)   
>  [Lyaki's info](http://theanaideialegacy.tumblr.com/post/145216720148/lyaki-manassali-m-bounty-hunter-human)   
>  [Vhan'Zham's info](http://theanaideialegacy.tumblr.com/post/156221851133/vhanzham-khadras-m-jedi-consular-human)
> 
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> and [my legacy's blog](http://theanaideialegacy.tumblr.com/).  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
